Silhouettes
by And The Moment's Gone
Summary: "A thousand silhouettes dancing on my chest. No matter where I sleep, you are haunting me" or Charles and Eleanor overcome pride to reconcile their new realities.
1. Part I: Vane

Title: Silhouettes  
Category: Television Shows » Black Sails  
Author: And The Moment's Gone  
Language: English, Rating: Rated: T+  
Words: 3,255  
Warnings/Spoilers: Season 2 finale. You don't need to see it, but you need to know what happened.

 _Official Disclaimer_ : All Black Sails characters and plots belong to Starz, and Michael Bay, I do not hold stock either the company or the man. Charles Vane, Eleanor Guthrie, and any other character featured are NOT mine. The title comes from the Of Mice and Men song _Silhouettes_ and I don't own that either.

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Quick Author's Note: This fanfic would not be made possible without truegodofthearena's 8tracks playlists (seriously folks, go check them out), and realmofvane listening to my justifications. If you do tumblr, and your don't follow either of them, do it now.

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With Flint and what was left of the _Walrus's_ vanguard in the Captain's cabin, Vane didn't hesitate to commandeer the Navigation Room. He'd never handled sleeping in the hold with the rest of the crew well, the smell of stale sweat and the too close walls fraying on his memories like a blade on rigging. Teach had been the first to allow him to sleep above deck, on a cot in the forecastle deck, provided that he take the last watch of the night, and kept himself in line during the day, and more often than not, Jack would find him there in the dark hours of the morning on the _Ranger,_ giving just enough warning for him to slip back into his berth in time for the crew to come alive.

It never occurred to him that he hadn't thought to ask Flint for this, their fledgling agreements sustaining their need for speech until the settlement was nothing but ash, and the men seemed to be able to work together without incident, for the time being. Once they'd made way after the destruction of Charles Towne, the one concession that he'd offered was that his room also housed as many of his crew as could fit without him feeling crowded.

It was the easiest way to ensure that no one wound up stabbed to death in their sleep, and that he was able to pretend to keep his men's counsel in route to Tortuga.

He didn't bother to question why they'd all fled after they'd received word of Nassau, and what had befallen Eleanor Guthrie. He'd been told later – by a very solemn Flint – that the second the idiot at the tavern relayed the news and raised a glass in ' _good riddance to the bitch_ ' that he'd behaved rather tamely, extricating himself from the whore on his lap, smashing the poor sod's ale into his face - undoubtedly breaking one of his arms - before growling to Bixby to keep the men's fucking mouths shut and stalking off into the night.

He'd had worse reactions to bad news, after all.

Other than to make sure that he was physically all right after the altercation, Flint left him to his own devices, handling the restocking and regrouping of the crew, assigning Bones and Scott to work out the quartering of the men and delegating jobs, and plotting the course back to Nassau.

After his second hangover, a two-day long affair that rendered him unable to hold the simplest of foods down, Vane decided that he'd been long overdue some manual labor. He informed the men that he was going to be working with the rigging crew, repairing the foremast and handling the topsail.

It had been years since he had thrown himself into the day to day of a ship. While he had always been hands-on with the crew of the _Ranger_ , never asking more from his men than he would be willing to do, and never allowing the vanguard to risk themselves without him, he had never voluntarily stepped onto the deck to share the work after he'd been made captain. The men had needed someone to lead them, to give the orders and see that they were obeyed. Sharing the load would have confused them.

If Flint was bothered by the role he chose to play during the daylight hours on the ship, he said nothing. It kept him from being drunk, kept him from picking unnecessary fights, and kept him busy. After all, before they could find a way to bring Nassau back from the brink of chaos, they needed to get there.

By his count, they were two days to home on the first truly calm night they'd had since leaving port. The masts had been secured, sails rehung, and men amiable when Vane retired to his cabin, taking an ewer of water and his dinner plate with him. He ate in silence, focusing on the tasks awaiting him on deck, the job ahead of them once they reached shore, and the promise of strategizing with Flint in the morning.

He spent the next hours with inkpot and parchment, drawing up the repairs that needed to be made to the fort by his best recollection, the division of the island, and how best he and Flint could establish dominance when they returned.

The knock on the door didn't faze him. He'd asked for the helmsman to alert him to last watch. No matter how he exhausted himself during the day, sleep hadn't come easy since they had docked in Tortuga, and if he could aid the other men in shifts, and ensure that they weren't bedraggled and fatigued when they reached port, all the better.

He didn't look up from the table to bellow, "Enter."

Starkson, the cabin boy they had picked up at port usually opened the door just enough to give him the news, or to relay a message before scurrying off again, most of the time forgetting to close the door behind him. So when Mister Scott carefully slid through the wooden door, bottle in hand, it took him a good moment to realize that this was probably the first time since Charles Towne that he had actually looked at the man. "I found this in the galley, hidden behind the water barrels." Scott set the bottle on the navigation table beside Vane. The captain didn't ask what the bottle contained before lifting it to his lips, nor did he really think that Scott actually knew. But it burned going down, and he found himself in desperate need of that.

It didn't occur until he set the bottle back between them that while almost everyone on the crew of the Spanish Galleon had had a working relationship with Eleanor, it was not only he and Flint that knew the woman for what she was.

Vane didn't invite Scott to sit, didn't acknowledge that he was still in the room for the most part. They partook in the drink with a less than companionable silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

"Eleanor had always been a serious girl."

He'd almost forgotten that Scott was in the room with him when he spoke, an hour later. The older man was on the other side of the navigation table, facing the large window, eyes unfocused. "From the day her father placed her in my care and quit the island, she knew who she had to be, and what she had to do to be it."

The first time he'd seen Eleanor on the beach she was thirteen and fatherless, having been that way for the past five years of her life. Her considerable education had come from the tutor that Richard Guthrie has employed in order to be able to see her suitably married off – no doubt in hopes that there could be some profit from it – and what she learned at the knee of Mister Scott in the warehouse. She excelled at sums, mastered languages, memorized ships and captains and hulls and hold space. By the age of twelve she knew which crews camped where on the beach, recognized ships and banners, and had a firm grasp of which captain valued discretion amongst his crew, and which sailed by reputation alone. Eleanor worked in the tavern the next year, managing the books and pouring drinks, and by the winter of her fourteenth year, she had established her office on the ground floor of the building, where Mister Scott allowed her to sort through the leads and warehouse ledgers, actively participating in the decisions regarding the business.

Some captains adored her, encouraging her tenaciousness, boasting of her to her father. Some captains hated her, cursing the girl for being exactly what she was and not apologizing for her ambitions. Charles Vane was riveted. He saw a tiny, seemingly fragile woman made of steel: willful, passionate, and every bit as intense as her male counterparts.

"You tempered that."

Vane's eyes flashed cold for a moment, contradiction on his lips. Eleanor Guthrie had been a great many things: fire and ice, a typhoon enclosed in pretty packaging, with an iron will, a sharp tongue, and a willingness to wield both in her quest for creating something more than she had been given.

But she'd never been tempered.

Even in the darkest corner of his tent when it was just him and her and the night, she had never allowed him to see all that she was. That was a weakness that she couldn't afford to show, and he wouldn't have been able to pretend not to see.

"I know you are thinking that that was impossible," Scott didn't acknowledge that the look on his face damn near shouted it. Just kept standing and looking out of the large window onto the water. "That Eleanor Guthrie could not be tamed; refused to be controlled.

"But you calmed her spirit." Scott took another sip of the bottle. Although it was entirely likely that Vane wouldn't know this, the first time he and Eleanor had fought – over the fact that at age fifteen, she didn't believe that she needed the protection of the men that Scott had retained for such a purpose and how if she kept prancing around like she wasn't a young girl on an island of pirates, he would have no choice but to assign members of his crew to her that wouldn't take 'no' for an answer – his Guthrie charge had raged and fumed in the confines of her office for hours before sleeping longer and harder than she had in weeks.

And every time after that, every argument where he pushed her for the sake of letting her push back, every chance he gave her to make her feel strong and protected only stoked the fire.

And the nights after that…

"You quieted her thoughts." Scott realized as soon as Eleanor had fought for full control of the warehouse that the days of her pretending to follow his guidelines were numbered. He tolerated her rebellion with as much grace as he could afford, but the first time he had to send men to retrieve Eleanor from the _Ranger_ camp in the middle of the night, he'd implored to Vane on behalf of her safety for their dalliances to be moved to her room at the Inn if they were to continue. More often than not, they complied. "And regardless of what she did to you, or what she let you do, she loved you so fiercely that she defied her own logic and reasoning."

That was something that Charles didn't have to be told. Especially since she hadn't been alone in that. The list of things that he did to ensure her safety after they'd parted ways was second in ferocity only to the list of things that he did in defense of her while he was allowed to consider her his. From plundering ships that refused to do business with a woman and tried to take their prize elsewhere to finding a compelling argument as to why the man who had publically threatened her needed to die horribly, his sins were great.

"And when she ended it. When business prevailed over her wants, it physically pained her to let that go."

It was a move that had been in both of their best interests at the time. Rumor had started among his men that Vane had gone soft, that he catered to the needs of a woman over the crew, and he had to threaten twice as many men and work twice as hard to keep his crew in order, despite the leads they were given, the prizes that they took. On Eleanor's part, the situation hadn't been that different. The _Ranger_ 's prizes were second only to the _Walrus_ and the men that had praised her for her tenacity and strength suddenly began to taunt her for playing favorites with her favors.

When she'd told him of her decision, he'd fought against it.

He could handle his men. Those that wouldn't fall in line, or decided to subvert his captaincy would be replaced. The scores that they plundered, and the rush of the chase would be enough to keep the men that he wanted anyway. Eleanor Guthrie was the only thing on the entire earth that he had allowed himself to keep. He wouldn't allow her to throw that away for fear of appearing as if either one of them'd gone soft.

But the little girl had been cleverer than he had given her credit for. And she locked him out of her bed and her heart in less time than it had taken his crew to go hunting their latest prize.

And when he fought her on it – and oh how they fought – his crew stopped receiving leads. Then his usual terms were revoked. Mister Scott had told him that it was just business; that if he brought in a few more good hauls his percentages would return to where they were. Eleanor refused to meet with him in any capacity. And up until the moment when she was so pissed at him over his interference in the _Walrus's_ vote that she punched him in the middle of her own tavern, he never thought he'd see the fire in her eyes – the uncompromising passion that she reserved only for him- again.

Truth be told, even when examining the woman that he would be forced to retaliate against, he seemed to find himself picturing her as she'd been when he'd last seen her.

Not the woman who had locked him in the fort, blue eyes shining with the tears that even then she couldn't shed. It wasn't even the woman that had called him on his words; when he laced his plea for her to let him keep the girl – and his pride – with the thinly veiled threat that they both knew he would rather die than see through.

No, the Eleanor that he reconciled in his mind, the one that he'd sworn to his men would give them their due, or pay dearly, was the one that had waltz into his room in the fort and demanded that he not 'say a fucking word,' and 'just sit there and listen.' It was the haughty woman who was so sure that she was right that she didn't stop to consider what her way would do to anyone else. It was the woman that had gotten it into her head that taking Abigail Ashe down the hill, and creating a 'legitimate' New Providence Island was the only way to prosper, that he wanted to make pay.

Charles Vane could see both women in his mind's eye now; slowly melding into the deity that he'd literally killed to keep safe.

"The fuck's it matter now?" The words were drenched in anger, but they lacked the bite that should have followed. The only thing that Mister Scott accomplished – in whatever the fuck this trip down memory lane was – was to force him to reconcile that the woman Hornigold had handed over to the Royal Navy was most likely the first of the two Eleanor's, not the second. Her strength was her mask, the persona that she paraded down the beach in hopes that the men didn't see that there wasn't a moment that she wasn't afraid they would realize that her power hung by a thread. "We're two days from port. Almost two weeks behind the _Scarborough_." Vane could have been shouting now, it was very hard to tell. "And even if there was a ship ready to leave the second we arrived, and I could convince Flint to let me supply and chase after her, I wouldn't have the ordnances to go against what the _Scarborough_ has at its disposal!"

Scott chose his next words carefully. The captain that sat on the cot in front of him was not the same man that wandered the decks. Vane's control was tenuous at best, and Scott didn't want to be around when it finally snapped. "I never meant to suggest that you go after her."

"Then what the fuck _are_ you doing here?" He was on his feet now, stalking across the room to avoid the temptation of planting his fist in the middle of Scott's face. No matter the satisfaction that it would bring, the frustration that such an action would tamp, he didn't think that it was something Flint would be able to overlook.

And it amazed the shit out of him that he had enough faculties to recognize that point.

"What possible purpose could you have of coming in here and waving the past in my face if not to try to get me to go after her?" Vane shuttered at the sound of the bottle breaking against the wall. He didn't even remember taking it from the table.

Scott didn't even seem to notice.

"The men are under the assumption," he started in the same tone that he'd held throughout the whole conversation. "That your anger stems from losing the opportunity to bring Eleanor to heel yourself."

It was actually the tamest of the rumors that had spread with the current mood of the Galleon's two captains. Flint was seething in private, stoic with the crew, and penitent in the presence of those he trusted most. He should have seen Hornigold's betrayal and circumvented it, not left Eleanor alone on an island threatening to swallow her whole. Vane's manicism was borderline hysteria, never stopping, never stilling in front of the crew.

After allowing a breath for his words to be taken in, Scott took a step forward, cautiously. "I do not presume to know what thoughts you have." It was a sentence that both men knew that he had uttered frequently in his years in the Guthrie's employ. "But I know what I think." He paused, his next breath soft and his eyes firmly on Vane's face. "And if you are going to try to hate her for putting herself into this position, for putting _you_ in this position," he corrected. "Then I thought it warranted for you to remember why it could be no other way."

There was a quiet moment, when Scott seemed to be either trying to find a way to dismiss himself, or waiting for comment, before he nodded, uncrossing his arms. He gave the Captain a wide berth as he moved around the table back to the door. And as a final thought, one hand on the catch he said, "Eleanor would not expect you to come for her, not because she did not think you capable, but because she could not endure the thought of you captive beside her."

Vane didn't hear the door shut.

He didn't hear Mister Scott telling the boy that he would not be on deck for the watch.

The navigation table thundered to the ground as he slammed into it, candles and maps and implements skittering across the floor. His cot was next, physically ripped from the floor to be launched across the room. Chairs and charts and the ewer, nothing was safe from the typhoon once it started.

He didn't stop until there was nothing left; until the whirlwind told him that he had nothing left.

Then Charles Vane collapsed to the floor, and finally let himself sob.


	2. Part II: Eleanor

Title: Silhouettes  
Category: Television Shows» Black Sails  
Author: And The Moment's Gone  
Language: English, Rating: Rated: T+  
Words: 2,866

Warnings/Spoilers: Season 2 finale. You don't need to see it, but you need to know what happened.

Official Disclaimer: All Black Sails characters and plots belong to Starz, and Michael Bay, I do not hold stock either the company or the man. Charles Vane, Eleanor Guthrie, and any other character featured are NOT mine. The title comes from the Of Mice and Men song Silhouettes and I don't own that either.

* * *

Tobias Hume was not an unnecessarily cruel man, regardless of the stories Eleanor had heard coming in from the beach.

Nor was he entirely unreasonable.

Eleanor was a woman, on her own in the middle of an ocean aboard a Royal Navy man o' war complimented with at least one hundred and sixty men. She wasn't going to run, she was most certain to die if she jumped, and the only thing trying to fight her captors would do would give them cause to mistreat her.

She didn't need to be told that if it were Charles in her stead, he would have done any of the three options that she had first considered. It would have been bad enough that they clapped him in irons. Charles Vane would not have allowed them to take him to England and create a spectacle out of him.

From her place at the giant window seat in Hume's cabin, Eleanor watched the men on the beach, breathing in the sweet sea air.

She longed for Nassau now, in a way she could not name.

The ship was currently anchored at Harbour Island, a brief stop before setting sail toward England. Captain Hume had taken it upon himself to have two more gowns procured for her, as well as a comb and soap made of something other than lye. Eleanor had thanked him for the comforts that he afforded her, even knowing that in the end it was for his own gain. You don't produce a bedraggled woman claiming that she had ruled a pirate colony. His prize was only worth something if he could show London the fearsome creature that they claimed her to be.

She had also been allowed blank pages and writing implements while the men restocked and crews transitioned.

Hume's secretary had insisted that any correspondence she composed would be returned to Nassau at their earliest convenience. He didn't need to tell her that that was after it was thoroughly inspected to ensure she wasn't still trying to subvert the crown. They expected something. Whether a confession that they could use to help hang her with once they reached London, a direct line to Flint and Vane - along with whatever information such a correspondence would provide - or just something that could be used to against either man when the English finally decided to take back the island.

Eleanor was determined not to give them any such information to work with.

She would admit that she considered writing Flint. With her gone and the Guthrie fencing empire in tatters, the island was undoubtedly in chaos. There were those who would step up to try to collect the pieces. There was no doubt in her mind that Max and Rackham were already scurrying around to secure their future. She could only hope that when Flint returned, that he would also do his part.

A little voice inside reminded her. She would never know if he had been successful in his endeavor in Charles Towne, or whether or not Vane had thwarted him in his maniacal quest to seek what he thought he was owed.

Then she thought to write to Charles.

That idea was squashed the second it popped into her head.

Flint was one thing. If he'd made it through Charles Towne with his ship and crew intact, then he would have the legitimacy of Peter Ashe to rely on.

Distributing a letter to Charles would lead the Royal Navy to whatever she'd left on New Providence. He could be caught, and would fight and die for his freedom. No matter how she left them, she couldn't – she wouldn't - send him another battle to fight because of her.

Instead she wrote to Jack, describing him in a cover letter solely as the proprietor of the brothel, and not including his name or the title that generally went with it. She had briefly considered addressing the letter to Max before realizing that it was impossible to guarantee that any message she would be understood or distributed the way she needed it to. No matter what issues she and the former Quartermaster had had in the past, he was an incredibly brilliant man, discrete in his endeavors, and any message that she chose to send would at least make it to where she needed it to go.

Then came the problem of what to write.

 _My Dear Sir,_ she started slowly, knowing that it now longer served to mock, but distinguish. _My hosts have insisted that I put any last words I may have to page, for posterity. I've been promised that they will be provided to any acquaintances that I may wish to have them._

 _I regret that their generosity just simply cannot be denied._

 _You'll have to forgive my presumption that this letter is best suited in your hands. I can think of none other that would understand my reasons for writing these things, nor could I think of another who could best distribute them._

 _My first thought is to my property_. It was a lie, of course. Her first thought was to the Nassau that would become when she was gone, and the men that would have to live in it. But there was absolutely no reasonable way that she could present that within the pages she was to write. Hume would be a lot less likely to allow her the freedoms that she currently possessed if she were to express her instructions as how to maintain the Guthrie shipping trade without her.

Still, if there were any way that she could at least attempt to secure the island until Flint – and Charles – returned.

 _It is undoubted that your partner has already taken the steps to acquire my shares of the tavern and the inn -_ and if not, she left unsaid, that would be the best place to start – _and the subject of my personal effects could go either way. I care not for my clothing, or whatever coinage may still be in my possessions._ In truth, there wasn't much. Any money that she might have possessed was in the tavern safe, or hidden away in the warehouse. But no one save Mister Scott and Eme should know that. _I would consider myself appreciative if the volumes in my apartments and office were distributed to my retainer along with the jewelry in my case. Neither is worth much significance, other than sentiment, and there is none that would value it more._

 _There is one volume that I prefer not arrive in Mister Scott's hands,_ she wrote before she was physically able to stop herself. _The copy of Sonnets that I kept by my bedside should find another home. It was secured after my mother's library was dismantled, and I think that it should be returned to the procurer with my affection, as I was reminded that that particular tome was hard won._

She wondered if Jack remembered the events that led to that book making its way onto the island. She was seventeen when her father had returned to the island, reestablishing his seat on Governor's Island. He'd brought a mistress – a simpering spoiled woman called Molly that Eleanor had had more than one vision of selling to Mister Noonan – who had decided that Rebecca Stewart Guthrie's decorative tastes nowhere matched hers and must, therefore, be eliminated.

With little exception – the gold inlay tea set a house slave had managed to smuggle out for her along with the contents of her mother's writing desk – everything had been put on a ship to and sent to the colonies in hopes of fetching a pretty price. Her mother's books that she had yet to have brought to her rooms and office in Nassau were also lost.

It had been the very first time in their history that she'd slid unexpectedly into the _Ranger_ camp.

After she'd more or less attacked Charles, forcing him on his back and taking the control she'd so sorely needed, he'd held her as she ranted against this latest injustice and lamented the loss of her mother's favorite books.

The _Ranger_ was gone the next morning. And when it returned – with a bounty that it would only sign over to Mistress Guthrie and Mister Scott – there had been a worn copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets nestled in the top drawer of the chest in her room, wrapped In an intricately embroidered linen fichu beside the rest of her mother's jewelry. They'd never spoken of how the book came to be in her possession, but on the rainy days when the _Ranger_ was landlocked, and the captain's ill temper warranted an afternoon curled around each other in Eleanor's bed, she would crack open the book, and they'd recite the words on each other's skin.

The shutter that seeped out from under her skin scared Eleanor, and she held her hands to her lips to prevent the sob bubbling in her chest.

Why hadn't she appreciated those moments more when she'd had the chance?

Eleanor wrote of the tavern next, and the warehouses. She inquired after her employees, hinting at who should stay on to aid the transition, and who would be dead weight at a time like this. Both Jack and Max were extremely prudent in their business dealings, so she had no doubt that they didn't need what little direction that she could hide in the pages so it didn't look like she was prepping them for the invasion to come. It was after her notes on the fort that she paused again. She had taken care of everything that she could possibly think of in order to help Nassau prepare for what was to come, and she'd anchored it in women's language and ship speak so hopefully Hume wouldn't notice.

There was only one thing left for her to write.

 _Our Dear Captain will most likely say that I deserved this._ Her hand trembled as she forced herself to skip over naming Charles specifically. His Majesty's Navy didn't need to know that she was one that could speak intimately of Charles Vane, and Jack Rackham wouldn't need the clarification. _And that His Majesty's Navy punishing me for my sins does nothing for him than relieve the burden of him having to do it himself._

She would never know whether or not that was true.

 _I will not apologize for our latest incongruity, or the lengths I went to in order to secure the Nassau that I believed we could achieve. If I learned anything during my tenure, it was simply this: there are always sides. There is always a winner and a loser. For every person who gets, there is someone who must give._

 _And I gave Nassau everything that I had to spare and more._

 _It is what I gave up for her that I speak to now._

 _It wasn't supposed to be this way._ Her head throbbed with the thought of the first time she stood before Charles and refused to be afraid of him. She'd done the same to Flint, and Hornigold, and Lillywhite. She was Rebecca Guthrie's daughter, and no man would rule her the way her father had tried to rule her mother. _There wasn't supposed to be anything that the island didn't ask for me to give that I couldn't spare._

And he knew.

Goddamn Charles Vane, he knew that she couldn't afford to hand him her heart, and he stayed anyway. And the longer he stayed, the less he asked for and the more he let her give anyway, the more she hated him. Because she controlled the whole of the island, beholden to no man, She made fortunes and sank ships, and was deemed untouchable. Eleanor could do anything that her heart desired.

Except keep herself from loving him.

The words flowed from her quill steadily now, describing the way that siding with Flint tore her apart and that she hoped he survived the fallout, that he survived Charles Towne and what was coming. Eleanor never used his name; she knew what that would do, so instead she described what he was to her. How he had been indomitable in a young girl's eyes, and how he had always given her the strength that she needed by providing his own.

What was worse was that she forgave him, for taking from her what he needed in order to maintain his own agenda, For using her just as much as she used him, and just as unapologetically. Of the pain they caused each other, and the fact that who they were forbid it from being any other way.

She didn't know if the words would ever reach him, or if they would be read and dismissed by one that had watched them tear each other apart in a search for something that neither of them knew by name. But if this was her last chance to say it, then she wouldn't let it die with her.

In the back of her mind, she could hear her mother's voice, reminding her that even dying pirates called for their mothers.

 _If I were allowed one last sentiment,_ she wrote carefully, after her shaking subsided, and she had no more tears left to lie on the page. _I know few things of certainty, but I would like it remembered that I did know that truth can cause a sharp pain behind the eyes, and that love sometimes feels like a fist around the throat._

 _Do not let this be what breaks him._

 _If you can do nothing else for me, if there is no good will left in Nassau for Eleanor Guthrie, then do what you must for him._

 _Please._

In the end, Hume read the letter in front of her, no longer pretending that this had not been the plan all along. She watched him scan passages and notes, tuttering over words, and seeming to skip the third page entirely. It read, she supposed, like a goodbye to a business partner, and sad words for a lost lover, which, in a way, was the point. It was a lot more likely that Hume and his secretary would skip over what few pieces of advice that Eleanor had allowed herself to include about the fortification of Nassau since the bulk of it was aimed at the despair of what she left unsaid.

After the third read-through – which Eleanor spent in the chair on the other side of the table, hands clasped firmly in her lap and eyes downcast – Hume nodded, folding the papers and affixing his seal on the overlapping ends. "The first ship we see flying the black," he handed letter off to his secretary for safe keeping, "we'll get this in the hands of a captain, miss."

He seemed kinder now than he had when he ordered her to write the letter. She supposed it was because, after all of Hornigold's bluster and bravado, Eleanor Guthrie was just a woman – albeit one that held a lot of sway over the pirates of Nassau.

"If you wouldn't mind keeping below decks until we're out on open water, though." His words might have been calm, but his tone was not. While they were moored on Harbour Island, anything that appeared to be an attempt to escape would not be looked upon favorably, and he wouldn't hesitate to chain her to her bunk. "There's no need to risk distracting the men."

She nodded; after all, there was no way she couldn't acquiesce. "Of course." Hume rose, Eleanor following suit, and she had to force her voice to be so very small. "If you wouldn't mind though, Captain," she added as an afterthought. "Might I stay in here for a while longer? Your windows are larger than mine, and I do so love the sight of the sea."

She could hear Charles's laughter in her head when Hume gave his permission, taking in the sight of the demure Mistress Guthrie with an almost arrogant grin. He'd tamed the Queen of Thieves, and soon everyone would know it. "I don't see the harm in it." Hume nodded to his secretary, the command that one of the men should guard the door, just in case, on his lips. "Mister Babish will see you back to your bunk when you're ready."

Both men quit the room without the usual pomp, and Eleanor let out the breath she was holding, allowing herself to sink to the floor with an awkward thud.

She'd done her best.

She'd warned Nassau about how best to prepare for what was to come.

She'd gotten to say the only goodbye that mattered to her.

Eleanor pulled herself to her feet using the arm of the chair beside her and slowly moved toward the window, suddenly unbelievably calm.

England was going to kill her. They were going to parade her around the courts, declare her the scourge of civilization, and tell all those that wished to hear how she was responsible for the terror that existed on the seas. Her stomach flipped, bile rising to the back of her throat.

 _It wasn't supposed to be this way._


	3. Part III: Vane

Title: Silhouettes  
Category: Television Shows» Black Sails  
Author: And The Moment's Gone  
Language: English, Rating: Rated: T+  
Words: 2,703

Warnings/Spoilers: Season 2 finale. You don't need to see it, but you need to know what happened.

Official Disclaimer: All Black Sails characters and plots belong to Starz, and Michael Bay, I do not hold stock either the company or the man. Charles Vane, Eleanor Guthrie, and any other character featured are NOT mine. The title comes from the Of Mice and Men song Silhouettes and I don't own that either.

* * *

"I have something for you."

While the rest of port was giving him a wide berth, Max included, Jack strode into the fort as if he belonged there, sidling right into Charles Vane's quarters and dropping a parcel of folded paper onto the low table.

"When I told my men that I did not wish to be disturbed, did you think that meant by everyone but you?"

The eye roll was for Jack's benefit only, as Charles hadn't turned away from the window. "You haven't _wished to be disturbed_ for the last four days," he poured himself a healthy glass of whatever it was that was on the table, and took a swig. "And the only reason that the any of your men bothered to express your desire to me was because nowadays no one's entirely sure when you're next outburst is going to be. And they don't want to be the next poor fuck you throw off the bastion."

That had been two days ago.

And the afternoon before that, although there had been the argument made that Vane appeared, and the first man had just slipped.

Thankfully both men lived, although neither of them had been keen on rejoining the efforts to repair said bastion. Silver had been in the tavern just the night before lamenting the fact that if Vane couldn't keep his tantrums confined to the demolition of his quarters it was very likely he would wind up on the wall aiding in the repairs himself, peg leg and all.

Some day, someone was going to have to inform Jack as to how he was the one that always ended up in these situations.

The man in question was still facing the sill, scowl firmly in place. Jack tried to be happy about the fact that he hadn't been shot or stabbed yet. "Word from Port Royal is that the good King George has finalized his plans to retake the island, and that the fleet is launching any day now."

No movement.

Jack had a fleeting thought that at least Vane wasn't half dressed smoking opiates this time.

"And with Flint hell bent on letting you sort your own shit out, Max too busy complaining that your men aren't being sufficiently controlled, and the rest of the fucking island trying to stay out of your way," Was that a twitch? "I suppose it falls to me to see if I can't wrestle an agreement between the halves of you that refuse to allow you to do your fucking job."

Whatever control Charles Vane had held on to after being disturbed snapped, and he stalked down the steps toward Jack with single-minded focus of a man who wished for nothing more than an hour of peace. "My job?" He asked after a moment, his fingers clenching over the hilt of his dagger His other hand flexed briefly, and Jack was trying to negotiate the time it would take for Vane to draw his pistol with the time it would take for him to get to the door. "All I do is my _fucking job_."

Why in the hell hadn't he left that thing open again?

"I don't eat, I don't sleep," two things that Jack was well aware of, not that he would make the mistake of saying that out loud, thank you very much. "But I handle the rotations, my men guard the warehouses, and I oversee this _fucking_ fort while Flint refits the God Damned bay in hopes that we survive the whole of the fucking Royal Navy." They were toe to toe now, Charles's hands still itching for something to do, and Jack trying so very hard not to show any indication that he was terrified that that might very well be murdering him. "So, I don't really need anything from you for me to do my _fucking_ job."

Every single instinct in Jack's body told him to leave. The papers were in the room, so technically he'd already done his job. But words like 'Eleanor Guthrie's dying wish' kept fluttering past his eyes, and he realized that he most definitely did not have a choice here. "It's not from me," he said at last, "Actually." Taking a step back, Jack reached for the stack situated on the table. "This came in on the _Rambler_ yesterday." He held them out, not surprised when Vane made no move to take them. "Cooper wouldn't tell me how he came by it, just that he was told to deliver it straight to whomever owned the brothel."

"And why the fuck should I be interested in letters from the _Rambler_?" Charles understood what Jack was doing there, insofar as the fact that the last week of his life had been a haze that settled somewhere between rage and despair and it was effecting his Captaincy. Jack had always had the ability to measure moods, and push only so far as he needed to. It was the reason why he had made such an effective Quartermaster aboard the _Ranger._

Today Jack might actually die for it.

"Because the Quartermaster told one of Max's girls shortly before it was laid in my hand that they were set upon by the _Scarborough_ , handed this package and a _very_ civilized threat, and then simply left alone."

It was the mention of the _Scarborough_ that got Vane's attention. Jack wasn't about to kid himself that it was anything else. Charles had been noting the passage of that bloody ship through any news from the docks. There wasn't a single prize crew that hadn't been pumped for information to possibly appease the captain. Sadly they hadn't been able to provide much intel.

"This came from the _Scarborough_?"

His hand was held out now, and Jack took that as his cue to retrieve the papers and hand them off. "Apparently in attempting to garner both information and cooperation, Captain Hume saw fit to allow Mistress Guthrie," there was no delicate way to say this, "one last goodbye."

"And she sent them to you?" The papers still hadn't been opened, Charles didn't try to confirm that these words were truly in Eleanor's hand, but even if they were, his question would still be valid.

Jack and Eleanor didn't have a personal relationship, at all. Hell, they'd barely had a working relationship. Their only interactions revolved around her trips to Charles's tent, and the odd time they caught each other in the tavern. Charles always preferred to negotiate their cargo himself – even after he and Eleanor had their 'falling out'. Jack had to admit that receiving the stack of papers had vexed him too, until he'd read them.

"When she was 'removed' from the island, Flint was off to Charles Towne, Mister Scott with him, Max – well we don't have time for that explanation – and you," Jack stopped abruptly, trying to decide if there was a proper way to remind someone that they promised revenge via a note pinned to someone's dead father's sort-of crucified corpse.

There wasn't, so he just let the sentence hang.

"I think I was merely her safest bet." He was also the least biased of anyone that she could count on to still be on the island, but that was neither here nor there. With Vane staring at the papers in his hand, Jack realized that he had run out of things to say to get him to open them.

This time, his job was truly done.

"The first page in a half are more or less pleasantries," he said as an afterthought. He'd yet to be dismissed, and just straight up leaving didn't sit quite well with him. "She asked me to convey to Max that she wished her personal affects to go to Mister Scott, and she gave us a few ideas on fortifications and stockpiling for the oncoming invasion." He didn't mention that there were going to be a few less people working in the tavern, or that he would most likely need some backup when they started consolidating the warehouses according to Eleanor's instruction. He supposed those were things that he would have to discuss with Flint in the coming days.

He didn't mention the book that he had ferreted out of the crates that Max had created out of Eleanor's belongings. The one that was currently tucked under the mattress of the room he shared with Anne, waiting for Charles to decide that he was ready to receive it.

Jack watched as Charles slid open the folds, using his finger to pop the sticky seal open again. He didn't actually look at the writing when the pages flipped open, Charles's eyes finding something incredibly interesting on the mantle of the fireplace on the other side of the room just then. It took one long minute, before he finally allowed himself to confront the packet in his hand.

And Jack had never wished he could unsee someone inviting vulnerability so much before now.

Because no matter what Charles had steeled himself to expect, no matter whatever it was that he told himself would or wouldn't change when he saw the words, there was no mistaking Eleanor's neat and efficient lettering, or the care in which she appeared to take in her lines and wording. He scanned the document briefly first, taking in the fact that she never once calls anyone save Mister Scott – who was already a known associate and therefore implicated enough – by name. Jack was always referred to as 'Sir', Max his 'partner', and him…

 _Our Dear Captain will most likely say that I deserved this_.

Charles had to fight to keep himself upright.

She was right, of course she was. When he'd first heard the news of her capture, the first thing he had told himself over and over again was that he had warned her of flying too high. He had told her that she wasn't invincible and that she needed to stop acting as though she was. Charles may not have said it out loud, but he had tried consoling himself with the fact that she had walked into this mess with her head held high, and he could save her from Pirate Captains, drunken crew mates, and sometimes even gossip, but he was entirely helpless when it came to saving her from herself.

His eyes jumped a few lines down, where there was a smudge against her precise lettering. Charles wondered if her tears were still so very bitter.

There was no hint to the passage of time as Charles read and reread her words. He had also managed to sit down on the edge of his bed at some point – and he didn't have the energy to figure out how it had been put back together after his latest fit of rage. Instead he concentrated on her words, the way she had always been able to see through the façade of their interactions. Eleanor Guthrie had seen him as inimitable, a veritable typhoon and she loved him for it. She had drawn her strength from his and been grateful.

And she forgave him.

Everything that he had forced from her, everything that she had made him earn, she had given it freely in the only way that the two of them could have justified that kind of transaction. She knew that he was using her, just as he knew she was using him, and every step of their dance had been worth every second to her.

 _I loved him as certain dark things were meant to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul_.

They'd never said those words to each other when they were together. Hell, Eleanor had never used that particular adjective to describe the way she felt about him at all. It was always him, and always past tense. It had been the one taunt that he would pull out when he was feeling particularly vicious, to remind her that her mother had wished for her to be a romantic, and she had had the kind of love written in those books she cherished, and she threw it away for reputations sake.

Suddenly those words seemed more cruel than they had when he had first started throwing them in her face.

Because she knew.

And no matter what she had let him believe, Eleanor Guthrie had loved Charles Vane; wholly and unapologetically.

 _Do not let this be what breaks him._

 _If you can do nothing else for me, if there is no good will left in Nassau for Eleanor Guthrie, then do what you must for him._

 _Please._

It might have been safe to say that those three lines were the only reason that Jack had allowed himself to walk headfirst into what could have very well been his death.

She knew where she was going, and she wasn't naïve as to what was going to happen to her when she got there. But her concern wasn't for herself. No, she knew that if Nassau, if _he_ had any chance of making it through this, then Charles Vane would need to be whole,

It didn't escape Charles's notice that in order to guarantee he reached that state, she had lain herself bare before no less than three people. He didn't have to question how painful that would have been for her under normal circumstances. But she did it for him nonetheless.

Charles was standing now, folding the letter back to it's original shape and moving across the room to tuck it into the inside pocket of his coat. Jack had gone, which came as no surprise seeing as though he had apparently missed the sun setting. He had left a full bottle of rum on his exit though, and Charles downed half of it in one gulp.

He was pirate king Charles Vane.

This would not break him.

"One thing, Jack."

Vane had come out of literally nowhere. Jack had been counting his winnings from tonight's card game, setting aside a bit for Max since she had provided sufficient distraction and hospitality during the game, and the low rumble of his former captain's voice had been enough for him to fling a handful of coins to the other side of the table. He didn't try to retrieve them just yet, choosing instead to concentrate on stacking the ones in front of him as he cast a vigilant eye over the man. Vane had seemed to find clean water sometime since he had been left, and even his hair lacked the grime that had built up over the three weeks since Charles Towne. He had donned clean clothes as well, and Jack made note to send the clothier a thank you.

He didn't remark on the fact that Charles's eyes looked clearer than anyone had seen them in recent record, or that he held himself casually as he surveyed the room for eavesdroppers.

Whatever it was that Charles had found in Eleanor's words had done for him more than the entire island combined.

"Flint doesn't think that it's a good idea to let me off the island-"

"Can't imagine why he came to that conclusion." He hadn't meant to interrupt, honestly he hadn't. It just kind of slipped out.

Jack also didn't want to say that that looked like the makings of a smile on Charles's Vane's face, as he relieved him of his mug of ale. "So you and yours are going to have to something for me."

 _Anything,_ he almost spouted. If it kept the look of desperation from Vane's eyes, he would take Anne and do damn near anything. There was Flint of consider, and whatever favor Vane wanted would need approval, but Jack had talked himself into and out of less favorable situations. Flint wouldn't begrudge them anything that would promise Vane's sanity and cooperation, would he? "What kind of favor are we talkin' about here?"

"I want Hornigold, Dufranes, and every other stupid fuck that thought it was a good idea to hand Miss Guthrie over to Hume." Setting the mug down, Charles tilted his face to the moonlight. "And I'm not too particular as to the condition that their bodies make it back in."


End file.
